Our experience at Lehigh Valley was the definition of winning ugly.  Throughout the day, our robot struggled with consistency both during autonomous and the driver controlled periods.  For the first time this year, we experienced on-field electrical and wiring issues and saw our autonomous fail regularly.  It seemed like we were destined to end the day without much success.  However, despite the robotic challenges, our team continued to play tough and ended regulation play in First Place!  As alliance captain, we selected The Giant Diencephalic BrainSTEM Robotics Team and the Techno Tigers.  Our alliance played really well together and formed the Winning Alliance.     

On Saturday, February 8th, we hosted our first ever "mini-scrimmage" by inviting three other FTC teams to the Reading area for a day filled with lots of realistic practice matches.  We were thrilled that Javengers (#16330), Technion (#12564), and AI Robotics (#14464) choose to join us for a fun afternoon of driving, programming, and networking.  The experience was a great opportunity for our team to give back to the FIRST Tech Challenge community and share our learning with some newer teams.  We have received so much assistance over the years and we feel a great sense of responsibility to help other teams grow and become successful.  We know the hard work it takes to put together a quality team, but we also recognize that we couldn't have done it without guidance and advice from others.  While we continue to improve and fine tune our own performances, we hope to also serve as mentors and role models for the young and up-and-coming teams.       

We had the opportunity to give an outreach presentation to the 5th grade gifted students at Green Valley Elementary School (Wilson School District).  Our goal was to connect with the students through hands-on activities and presentation in order to inform the Wilson Community of the benefits of STEM education and the awesome learning experiences and opportunities provided by FIRST.  More specifically, we provided a description of how we organize our team and the roles each sub-team fulfills. Our design team discussed some of the cooler features of our robot and allowed the students to interact with and explore different parts such as our Mecanum Wheels.  Students were also given a brief tutorial in programming languages and were able to use the text-to-speech coding feature to have the robot speak to them. The marketing team demonstrated the importance of seeking sponsorships, making outreach arrangements, and distributed team pens and business cards to the students.  Receiving the little gifts seemed to make them feel extra special. At the end of our presentation, each student had the chance to drive our beginner bot. ​